We're All In Love
by Amy Blue
Summary: We're all in love with something that we can't see. (I'm in love without you.) EJ.


Disclaimer: They aren't mine. Just playing with them for a while. :)  
  
"Cory and Topanga broke up," Jack said as soon as Eric opened the door, walking in without waiting for an invitation.  
  
"I know that," Eric replied, momentarily at a loss before heading for his spot at the kitchen table, where he'd been combing through the newspaper for classified ads. First an apartment, then a car. "But they're only separated." A pause. "Is that why you came?"  
  
"I thought you might want to see me," Jack said. "You're my best friend. But mostly I came to ask you to come to New York. To talk to Cory. Help him out, you know? You're his brother."  
  
"You don't have to keep reminding me who I am." Eric feigned disinterest, scanning the metro section of the newspaper.  
  
"What's wrong with you? I thought you'd be happy to see me. I thought you'd be concerned about Cory."  
  
"How's Rachel?" Eric asked, sidestepping the accusations that he was neither happy to see Jack nor concerned about Cory, possibly because both were true.  
  
Jack looked hurt, but recovered quickly. "She's fine, I guess."  
  
"That's great. It really is. It's great."  
  
"Cory said you were a teacher now."  
  
Eric looked up. "High school. Best years of my life. Thought I'd try to give that to somebody else. You know the drill."  
  
"Those were the best years of your life?"  
  
"Yeah, pretty much. Footloose and fancy-free, that was me then."  
  
"What are you now?"  
  
Eric couldn't stop the word from coming out of his mouth even though he knew it would be the worst thing to say; it was also the most perfect response he could have come up with if he'd had six hours to think of one. He'd had six seconds, and here it was. Maybe it was fate.   
  
"Happy."  
  
Jack didn't respond. Eric snuck a peek at him while pretending to read an article about buses, or something. His face was expressionless, as if with that one word Eric had found his 'off' switch.  
  
"Come to New York," Jack said, as if he simply hadn't heard Eric's perfect response. "If not for me, then because your brother needs you."  
  
"He doesn't need me," Eric replied quietly, concentrating on the newspaper. The words blurred together, the letters intertwined and danced on the page, trading partners carelessly. Intoxy harbin felwo, a headline read, and its size seemed to indicate extreme importance. He settled on that article and kept his gaze steady. "He doesn't need me," he repeated, "because he has Shawn."  
  
Jack's eyes clouded. "What's that supposed to mean?"  
  
Eric flicked a withering look in his direction. But all he said was, "Shawn's more of a brother to him than I've ever been." Just enough to make Jack backpedal all those conclusions to which he'd just leapt.   
  
"Oh," Jack said, and glanced down at his hands. Remarkably, they couldn't seem to keep still. He rolled both fists into balls and pushed them into his thighs, again and again, until his palms stopped shaking when he released his fingers. "I just... I really wish we could have a second chance."  
  
"I think it would be more like our fifth chance," Eric murmured, engrossed in another nonsensical article now. "And five is just too many, don't you think?"  
  
"Rachel's gone now," Jack said, and it came out like a plea.  
  
So you won't be distracted anymore, Eric observed. Wow, I must be really important to you. Leftovers. (Not that he had anything against leftovers, per se. Great for breakfast, sometimes leftover spaghetti could last a whole week before getting too gross. But he didn't really want to be leftover spaghetti.)   
  
"That must be hard for you," he offered instead.  
  
"She met someone while we were away."  
  
"I'm sorry," he said, and did not add: I'm sorry I didn't meet someone while you were away, too. Well, maybe that would have been a lie anyway; he had met someone, several someones. Eric had never had trouble making friends. Just nobody too special. Nobody worth leaving Jack for. He envied Rachel. Freedom.  
  
"Wait for it," Jack grinned, although he clearly did not find it at all amusing. "She's a girl."  
  
"Rachel? Yeah, I remember. Tall, red hair?"  
  
"Not Rachel."  
  
"Rachel's not a girl? I always thought she was too tall to be--"  
  
"The person she met. It's a girl. Christina. They moved to California when we got back."  
  
"That's interesting," Eric said, returning to the newspaper. "I would never have thought she'd go for that."  
  
"Neither did I. Neither did she. She said, 'Yeah, I always thought it was gross, but it turns out it's not.' Like, could you twist the knife a little more, please?"  
  
Oh, I could. "Hm. Must have been terrible for you." He glanced up. "I don't suppose you--"  
  
"No, dude," Jack laughed, and it almost felt like old times. "And not for lack of trying. Rachel said something about how it would trivialize the depth of the love they shared, or some crap like that. I think that Christina girl would have gone for it, though. She looked kinky."  
  
"Wasted opportunity, pal."  
  
"You're telling me."  
  
"Go back to New York, Jack," Eric said abruptly, folding up the newspaper and sitting back in his chair.   
  
"Wow." Jack mimicked his gesture, settling further back into the couch. "I guess that means you aren't coming with me."  
  
"That's what it means. So just go, okay?"  
  
"No. I won't."  
  
"Cory will be fine. It's just a separation, not a divorce. Even I know the difference."  
  
"Fuck Cory."  
  
"Now, that would be kinky. But no."  
  
"Why won't you come with me?"  
  
"Because," Eric said, looking at every single other object in the apartment but Jack, "Nobody deserves this."  
  
"What are you--"  
  
"I know I make it seem like I don't care. Like I'd be perfectly happy to just leave everything behind because, hey, you need me, and haven't I always been there for you before?"  
  
"That's not what I'm asking."  
  
"It is, though. Do you have any idea what it was like to watch everyone else--Cory and Topanga, Shawn and Angela, you and Rachel--and always be the odd man out? Yeah, I had some girls once in a while, but nothing... not love."  
  
"I don't understand."  
  
"Cory and Topanga have been in love since the beginning of time. Shawn couldn't have what he wanted, so he settled--"  
  
"What?"  
  
"So he settled for Angela," Eric pressed on, "and they're apparently happy once in a while. And you and Rachel, the big love affair, sort of. Even Mr. Feeny fell in love, in the end."  
  
"What are you getting at?"  
  
"If you don't know, then it really doesn't matter. Go back to New York, Jack. Start over. Rachel will come back to you, and if she doesn't, there'll be others. Just go."  
  
Jack stared at him for a while before rising. Without another word, he simply left. Eric remained frozen in place.  
  
When the persistent knock came at the door a few minutes later, he didn't intend to answer it until he realized it might be the girl next door coming over to call the fire department because her curtains were suddenly ablaze. If her apartment burned down, then the whole building, including his apartment, could burn down, and that would suck. A lot. He liked his apartment, and it had been really hard to find one with an avocado refrigerator. Or the old lady in the apartment on the other side could be coming over to ask him to go get her kitten off the ledge outside his kitchen window before the cat leaped to his death five stories below. He didn't want the death of a kitten, even one as badly behaved as Mr. Kitty, on his hands.   
  
So he took a deep breath and opened the door.  
  
"Shawn was never in love with Cory," Jack said, "and you were the one who never wanted me."  
  
And then he kissed Eric, just long enough to let him know that he wasn't leftover spaghetti. Maybe Rachel had just been green beans, or a salad: an obstacle on his way to the main dish.  
  
As quickly as he'd blurted his confession of sorts, he was gone.  
  
"Damn it," Eric said, and closed the door.  
  
Looked like he'd be on the next plane to New York. 


End file.
